Friday, April 17, 2015

According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, "Rusty Blackbird is one of North America’s most rapidly declining species". The International Rusty Blackbird Working Group is in their second year of gathering data on this little understood blackbird. You can help by entering your Rusty Blackbird sightings on Cornell's eBird website. The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources lists this species as "Vulnerable" due to long term population decline. Some theories for this decline include:
• Loss of wooded wetlands in southeastern wintering grounds
• Increased competition for food with other blackbird species
• Increased exposure to an unknown disease to which it has not developed strong immunity